I have recently received my copy of The Writing Spiral: Learning as a Writer, a book in which my work has appeared. My words. It’s a modest beginning, but it is a beginning. I have made it into a book that people are going to buy! How cool is that? I’m a writer.
I’m a writer? What does it mean to be a writer, and what makes me one? These questions have left me scratching my head, because I don’t believe that I am an authentic writer. You see – I have no imagination.
I write daily for my job, and I am doing my best to write down 500 words a day through an online writers group. I write in my journal often. But is that all there is to being a writer? I’ve always been a little hesitant.
Reasons for feeling like a phony:
- English isn’t my first language.
- In my family of origin, no one wrote anything; some didn’t even read. Many of my family members never went to school. They were peasant farmers in northern Greece.
- I can’t imagine a story, or even re-tell a story to a 9 year old. I can’t even remember a joke.
So who do I think I am, calling myself a writer?
When I was a child, no one read to me. My mother is illiterate and my father didn’t have the time or know what it was to read to a child. It`s difficult to even imagine either of my parents reading a bed time story. Also when I was a child, I missed reading the childhood stories my friends did. I have never read Heidi, The Secret Garden, or even Anne of Green Gables. I fell in love with reading when I discovered the bookmobile that would park in a nearby strip plaza next to my school once each week. They built the library when I was a teenager. That’s when I read much of the Trixie Beldon series of books and Tales from the Crypt. I would say I fell in like with reading then. It wasn’t until after I’d returned to school as a young single mom that I started reading real books, and I haven’t stopped since.
Being creative is something that I`m trying very hard to be. It doesn’t come easy to me; in fact it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. You’re either creative or you’re not. I’m more of a concrete thinker. I problem solve. I advocate by writing things down and using evidence to persuade people. I’m not like my husband who can create a game out of nowhere or make up stories to tell children at bedtime or around a campfire. I so admire that. I struggle to do anything of the sort.
Yet I do have stories to tell. I think of story lines all the time. Some of them come to me by watching life unfold around me. Being in the line of work that I`m in, I have heard so many tales of pain and sorrow, of failures and weaknesses, and also of incredible strength, perseverance and victory. As a lawyer at a children`s aid society, I have found people will surprise you. I know that I can write about the human condition, and I think that I can use the characters that I have come to know and create something worth reading.
All I know is that I must try. As Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you are right.”
